On Aug 20, 2007, at 4:53 PM, William Stein wrote:
> On 8/20/07, Robert Bradshaw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> I can't imagine SAGE doing much (as it is now) in pure python--for
>> example we wouldn't even have Integer.pyx.
>
> Wrong. The notebook is fully functional in pure python, as is DSAGE,
> and as is all of the interfaces to Gap, maxima, etc.
I guess I should have said "doing much *math*" because I agree that
there is tons of non-math functionality that could be very useful to
people.
>> Even the calculus package
>> has pyx files, and I would envision it getting more.
>
> Those are *only* to support some syntac suger, e.g., var('...') doing
> namespace injection. That unecessary for the calculus package.
OK, that's not much. (I was going off memories of calculus flashing
by during sage -ba) I thought the plan was to eventually implement
some of the stuff in calculus (e.g. for fast construction/evaluation/
subs) but perhaps it is so dominated by maximal calls that it
wouldn't help much. We'll have to see how simpy fits into this too
(though I'm glad to hear it's going well).
>> The "lite" makes
>> it seem like the core is still there, and I don't see how to extract
>> that.
>
> It depends on what you view as the core. Maybe lite is the wrong
> name.
> For tons of people out there the notebook and interfaces are the only
> parts of SAGE they currently use. Think, e.g., of Fernando Perez
> -- he'd
> be likely to use something simple-to-install with the interfaces to
> Mathematica,
> etc., in it. He has no need of our algebraic functionality, since
> he uses
> scipy for his number crunching needs.
I guess I've always seen the core as a mathematical computation
engine (that includes many other open-source math packages in a
hassle-free way). I think this is a common view (others--correct me
if I'm wrong). SAGE is a lot more than its core, but to me sage-lite !
= "everything but the serious mathematics."
Now I understand your goal, I think it's a worthwhile one, but the
name caught me completely off guard.
>> I think if it does anything mathematical on its own, it will be a
>> very hard to draw (and understand) line (not to mention maintenance
>> headache).
>
> I disagree, especially because of the existence of Sympy. A
> couple months ago Sympy was not serious functionality wise,
> like nzmath, but Sympy is rapidly progressing (partly because Google
> gave them a lot of summer of code projects). Sympy is nothing
> like nzmath, and in fact I think sympy is going to improve greatly.
I'm still not sure that "some math" is better than "no math." The
line should certainly not be "whatever is in pure python as of now."
One problem I see is people trying to use matrices, or even factoring
a number, which can be done via maxima behind the scenes but will be
a very poor representative of what SAGE can really do. Or, at least,
there should be a way to say "this is horribly inefficient compared
to the version in full SAGE."
If there is a very clear line, e.g. only calculus+plotting, maybe
that would be OK.
> Also, I know the calculus stuff in SAGE very well,
> and it's dependence on the rest of SAGE is fairly
> minimal, so it would be easy to modify so it doesn't
> depend on the serious math library part of SAGE.
> It would work on any system with maxima installed.
Would that be "...the right version of maxima installed?" ;-)
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